Of course politicians can lie.

On the point about taxation, that is a profound misrepresentation of his position.

He has signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s no-tax-increase pledge, and he is for a 12% flat rate tax.

In his book Nation of Victims, he discusses the various models of taxation on inherited wealth (Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez etc) in the context of the problem of wealth being allowed to concentrate to a kind of oligarchic extreme (a society dominated by a handful of billionaires, with everyone else living like serfs).

His books discuss a number of issues in this manner — talking about the problems, then the various theories on solutions, and the legal and moral context for an array of policy options. In the book he is discussing / acknowledging that a high inheritance tax is one way to reverse extreme wealth concentration over a few generations, and re-establish a strong middle class. This is true. Nevertheless, he has clarified, again, recently that he is not for death taxes, he thinks there are other / better ways to go about the same task.

Instead he prefers the idea of a 12% flat tax “eliminating cronyist deductions and loopholes.” He wants to eliminate the IRS. And he thinks radically lowering taxes, simplifying the tax code down to a couple of pages, and abolishing all deductions, would be a smarter way to allow wealth to flow back towards the middle and working class (without the need for confiscatory taxation, or government playing any kind of role in redistribution). Basically, he is anti the idea of government involvement in redistributive activity, because it breeds corruption and waste.